


No Goodbye, No Hello

by GraphiteWrites



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 07:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14564382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraphiteWrites/pseuds/GraphiteWrites
Summary: Infinity War spoilers.Steve and Nat are there for each other in a small Wakandan hut.





	No Goodbye, No Hello

**Author's Note:**

> This contains spoilers for Infinity War.
> 
> I've got lots of sad ideas after this movie.

She sectioned off another piece of hair with the plastic tip, following quickly with the cold dye. At this point, there wasn’t any use hiding and it was so much faster than waiting for it to grow back out.

“I always preferred the red,” his deep voice hummed as he leaned against the doorjamb watching.

Her eyes shifted in the mirror and she snorted. “Maybe I should keep the blonde, then. Wouldn’t wanting you to get everything back all at once, would we?”

“No, no. That’s too much happy for my old ass,” he grinned as he bit into his apple and winked at her. He turned slowly on his heel to pad back to the oversized chair in their suite at the complex.

She smiled to herself as she finished applying the dye, was even humming a little when she rinsed half an hour later. She brushed and dried her hair, already relaxing at the familiar red she grew up with. As a kid, she always hated it; it made her stand out. Then she met James and he fell in love with the shock of color. He would spend hours just idly brushing his fingers through it in the moments they stole, in the dark corners of hallways, and now as they lounge all over the complex.

The past few weeks had been so quick. The gang was collected here healing, resting. After all, they saved the universe, at no small cost. Their first week was spent rebuilding Wakanda and honoring their dead, the sacrifices they made. It was during that time that James had approached her. She hadn’t seen him in months, but he looked good, healthy. Words spilled from his mouth over a midnight coffee that he remembered everything. He remembered her. He remembered them.

So did she.

Now they laughed, they touched, they danced. It was like before, only less constricted. There was no need to hide this time. There were jokes about accents and dark things whispered in Russian, memories shared and touches stolen when no one was paying attention. They wasted no time and shared quarters in the complex, though only one of the two beds was ever used.

Everyone here was healing something, but they had healed more than bruises and broken bones.

She could feel his arms encircle her waist from behind as she straightened from putting her brush in the drawer. His cool, dark metal fingers took those of her right hand, and her left took his, cross their arms in front of her. He hummed some tune from the 40s in her ear, swaying them gently, and buried his face in her neck. She could feel his lips against her skin once in a while as he attempted to remember the lyrics. She let go of his fleshy hand and tilted her head back to lean on his shoulder as she reached to run her fingers through his long hair. There was a moment when she felt only air as his metal arm tightened around her waist and clenched at her fingers desperately.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him in the mirror to see a terrified look on his young face.

“Natalia?” he whispered, just as the head beneath her hand started to flake and disintegrate.

A small, helpless noise left her throat as she spun in time to feel and watch his body disappear. She still felt his painfully strong grip as his arm was the last to fall chip away, a small pile of ash on the tile at her feet.

It was only a moment before she choked in horror.

\--

Natasha jerked awake in the dark, making the same, muffled choke she had just dreamt of. Her hair was not red, she had bruised ribs, and she was covered in dirt. She also sat in the dark corner of a modest hut on a small chunk of farm in the Wakandan pastures. She had swathed herself in a red, patterned fabric that smelled so dangerously familiar.

“There was nothing. No goodbyes,” Steve’s tired, quiet voice drifted to her from the doorway. His frame blocked out the moonlight for a moment as he came in and sat on the mattress beside her. She hadn’t fallen asleep alone; they had both come here numbly.

“For some of us, not even a hello.” Her voice was shaky and she felt the warm tears rolling down her face, leaving tracks in the dust and blood that still covered it.

“I know,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder.

She opened the blanket he’d used as a sling, still faintly sour with the sweat of tending livestock, and let Steve join her in it. Together, they leaned against the wall, curled up under they only thing they had left of a shared companion.

“Do you, though?” she said warily, feeling herself die a little as it got harder to breathe.

He hugged her tighter and tucked her head under his chin, something he would never imagine himself doing to comfort someone like her.

“Yeah. I really do.”

Something in his voice told her he knew the truth. His muscles relaxed around her in resigned grief and she let her heard break the way it wanted to 6 hours ago as she watched so many of her friends, her family, flake away and scatter as ash in the breeze.   
This time, they would sleep dreamlessly and broken.

This time, they would wake ready.


End file.
